Monday, June 11, 2018

Kremlin’s ‘Russophobia’ Charges have Nothing to Do with Ethnicity, Everything with Politics, Shtepa Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 11 – The Putin regime
and its minions constantly invoke the term “Russophobia” to suggest that critics
of the Kremlin are ethnic bigots or even racists; but in reality, such charges
have nothing to do with ethnicity or language but are entirely determined by
politics, Vadim Shtepa says.

“Those who harshly criticize” Putin and
his regime “are declared ‘Russophobes’” by that regime even if they are ethnic
Russians or their criticism is entirely based on facts or even affection for
the Russian people, the editor of the After Empire portal argues (facebook.com/vadim.shtepa/posts/1899980626719585).

That becomes obvious if one looks at
the latest list of people in Estonia Moscow has declared “Russophobes” whom it
has banned from entering Russia. In addition to former president Toomas Hendrik
Ilves, Estonian foreign policy experts like Kristi Raik, Ivo Juurvee, Kalev
Stoicescu, and Erkki Bahovski, and political activists like Andres Herkel, Henn
Polluaas, Urmas Reitelmann, and Toomas Alatalu, there are some Russians and
Ukrainians as well.

On the list as well are Dmitri
Terepik, an ethnic Russian researcher at the Tallinn International Center for
Defense and Security, Jevgeni Kristtafovits, an ethnic Russian activist who
represents Kasparov in Estonia, Sergei Metlev who exposed the role of ethnic
Russian teachers in stirring up trouble over the Bronze Soldier controversy,
historian Igor Kopotin whose research focuses on Bolshevik atrocities in Estonia
during that country’s fight for independence, and Evhen Tsybulenko, who heads the
Ukrainian-Estonian society.

As Shtepa points out, in the past, “’Russophobia’
was a market of Russian nationalist movements. But today the Kremlin has in
fact privatized it after having disarmed the nationalists.” And its use of the
charge “very much recalls the term ‘anti-Soviet agitation’ of the USSR era.”
Like that, it is directed at anyone who fails to follow “’the party line.’”

In short, he continues, “the term ‘Russophobia’
has acquired a purely political meaning – it refers to a negative attitude toward
the Kremlin empire.” And that in turn means that the only way to overcome it is
by means of “the final de-imperialization of Russia,” quite possibly accompanied
by the disappearance of the term “Russia.”

When the British Empire disappeared,
London did not feel the need to deploy a term like “Anglophobia” against its
critics in Canada, the US, Australia or New Zealand.” Those countries all speak
English, but they are also “different nations,” something that the British
people have no trouble recognizing.

Within the borders of today’s
Russian Federation, Shtepa says, “there are about 50 ethnic Russian oblasts and
krays.” He suggests that “in the process of the final disintegration of the
empire will appear approximately the same number of Russian speaking nations,
from Koenigs on the Baltic to Primors on the Pacific Ocean.”

Once that happens, Shtepa concludes,
“the Kremlin’s accusations of ‘Russophobia’ will disappear” as well.